One of my best friends is a Pauline, check out the blog of one of her sisters!

Friday, June 30, 2006

The second reading for the Office of Readings today is 1 Samuel 25:14 - 39. This is the story of Abigail. It is one of my favorite studies and why I chose to write about it today. She is truly a fantastic woman and wife. Now her husband, Nabal, is a jerk. He has not treated her well at all. So here comes David wanting homage for protecting Nabal's property and the Nabal says "go take a hike". But the servants went to Abigail and told her. Now, she could have been an obedient wife to Nabal and not done anything. But she was obedient to GOD and God's servant, David. David even recognized this and thanked HER for keeping HIM safe from doing something that would have done him harm in God's eyes. There is a lesson here: We should not seek revenge, God will take care of everything. For Abigail, he got her out of her marriage and what isn't in this passage, but is in the very next line, is that David asks her to marry him. So God raises her up from this lowly, pathetic man, and gives her as bride to David. Nabal got his in the end as well. Abigail saved David from sin and David got a very smart and virtuous wife.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

I thought the Gosepl reading from today's Mass and the Second Reading from the Office of Readings was extremely poignant. So I am putting them in my blog today for those that do not attend Mass or do not participate in the Liturgy of the Hours.

A sermon of St AugustineThis day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.The blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, the ardent lover of Christ, who was found worthy to hear, And I say to you, that you are Peter. He himself, you see, had just said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ said to him, And I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. Upon this rock I will build the faith you have just confessed. Upon your words, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church; because you are Peter. Peter comes from petra, meaning a rock. Peter, “Rocky”, from “rock”; not “rock” from “Rocky”. Peter comes from the word for a rock in exactly the same way as the name Christian comes from Christ.Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, To you I am entrusting, what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained.Quite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed. It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord’s sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles. Do not be sad, Apostle. Answer once, answer again, answer a third time. Let confession conquer three times with love, because self-assurance was conquered three times by fear. What you had bound three times must be loosed three times. Loose through love what you had bound through fear. And for all that, the Lord once, and again, and a third time, entrusted his sheep to Peter.There is one day for the passion of two apostles. But these two also were as one; although they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, Paul followed. We are celebrating a feast day, consecrated for us by the blood of the apostles. Let us love their faith, their lives, their labours, their sufferings, their confession of faith, their preaching.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

my goodness did I miss out this weekend. I knew that Nicole Kidman and Keith Uruban were getting married and I'm so glad for them! But wow, Jon Benet Ramsey's mother died over the weekend, along with Aaron Spelling (hope his production company will keep rolling out those tv shows we all love), and the most interesting death of the weekend: Pierce Marshall III (aka the guy who is suing Anna Nicole Smith for his daddy's money), this just proves to show you that you can't take it all with you. I wonder where this case will go now (i.e. his estate sues her and the lawyers get all the money).

We didn't go to the upstate as planned - the rain put a damper on that. But we met my parents in Columbia on Sunday to pick up my dad.

Yesterday he couldn't move his right arm very well so he stayed home. I came into work only to leave after daily mass since they are painting the Chancery with noxious paint. Why, oh why they won't close the building is beyond me. You can smell it from across the street. Even our canon-law Monsignor said we should close the building. Oh well, it't not up to us. My lovely little bos called me about 20 minutes ago and told me and a coworker to leave. I think I'm going to tough it out until after mass. Yesterday I went home and slept I felt so bad. I have a migraine like you won't believe.

So an update on my brother. He's now at 144lbs and it's supposed to be all muscle. Now this is the kid who a year ago did not weigh enough to make into the service. So that is good. His wife just HAD to go out there (TX) for his graduation and to stay. So she left everything (stroller, car seat, crib, highchair, pack N play, washer & dryer, furniture, etc..) they had (taking only a few baby clothes and a suitcase of her own clothes), spent all the money they had and bought two one-way tickets for her and her male friend for them to go out there. Two days out there she had no money for food and couldn't stay at the hotel any longer. She called my parents and my mother told her to go to social services on base. Now, this is the girl who is 7 1/2 months pregnant, the baby is transverse, left all her doctors up here, left the W.I.C. and medicaid and went to TX. She wasn't on Tri-care yet and hasn't seen a doctor. Real smart. My brother is still living in barracks but he is trying to get her an on base apartment. Social services gave her some canned goods, Brett moved her into another hotel and she is supposed to have an appointment sometime this week. Brett called my parents and told them more than likely he is being sent to the "Sandbox" (i.e. Iraq) as soon as he gets out of Tech School. He will get his orders in a week or so that will tell him what base he will be stationed at. So we just keep praying for the baby since the two parents don't have much common sense between the two of them.

on to the home.... this weekend we did a bit more landscaping and it is starting to really take shape. Even my dad made comment about it. Haven't really done more than that.

on to friends..... hop on over to Sc GirlyGirl's and check out her "Crazy Test". I flunked it so guess I'm not crazy! ;) I think the only one I answered to was about the older man question. But nothing is crazy about that. Just ask my DH!

Friday, June 23, 2006

So in my Yahoo Group for women who wear headcoverings, one of the ladies shared this link with us. Below is the link and also my results. As you can see, I am 100% Roman Catholic! So try it out and be honest!

So if you would like a good laugh, head on over to my friend, SC Girly Girl's Blog. I would let your Wheaties settle in before you head on over - you just might loose them!!

It's just pretty good proof that cable t.v. has gone down the tubes!

So we are heading to the Upstate tomorrow morning. We have to pick up my dad who is coming to visit us for a week. My mom will come down next weekend to get him. It will be good to have him around. Hopefully we will also be able to pick up our new bed and bring back our new guest daybed as well.

My brother-in-law, Greg, called last night. Here is his picture (He's on the far right). Joe and I had to ribb him a little. He has been saying that he is coming down here to help start up our company. Well it's been 18 months. Every time he calls "I'm going to be there by the end of the month." Yesterday he was saying the same thing. He will be down by the end of June. I said, "Um, Greg, you do realize that is in SEVEN days, right?" So, we will see what happens, but I'm not holding my breath. And who knows? Maybe he will come down, help with the business, and make some single girl a lucky girl.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

So Tuesday night we sold our Honda Civic. We pray that the car will give the young couple who purchased it many years of enjoyment.

While driving into the city yesterday morning, I noticed a few things. First, you would think that in a city as large as Charleston there would be some good radio stations - WRONG!! I have lived here almost a year and I have found ONE station and it is AM!! Ugh. Where is my B93.7, 93.3 The Planet, KISS 95.1,107.9 The LINK or the miriad of stations I had programed into my car. Heck, I could listen to Russ Cassell and WORD all day right about now.

While driving in I could also smell the marsh around the Ashley River. I asked Napoleon if he smelled and he said "No, why? You ask like that's a good thing." And it made me realize something. While I can't stand the Paper Mill sulfur smell when it lingers, it's still a "Charleston Smell" along with the Marsh. It's almost like perfume to me because I love being in Charleston and it is a smell that reaffirms that I am here. I think locals seem to forget that and take it for granted.

Like Joe and I. We've been down here since August of last year. It's been since January that we went to the beach,and December since we went to the Market. Now, we have been up and down King street alot. Usually because I'm going to the Pauline Books and Media store. And we usually go up Queen Street to go to Poogan's or something. I also walk down Broad to Burbage's or Queen Street Grocery for a sandwhich now and then.

Hopefully this summer we will tour around more. Now that we don't have to kill ourselves driving back and forth from Wellford and spending all weekend working on that house, we can live a little bit.

And maybe, just maybe, we won't be taking this beautiful city for granted.

Monday, June 19, 2006

I had previously thought that after we had sold the Wellford home, we would slow down just a little. Nope. Last night we were at it again. We went to Lowe's around 6:30 and bought some lovely plants, mulch, and a new ice machine filter. Once we got home we started planting all the flowers as well as some of the plants I brought back from Wellford. I got the rose and canna lillies planted but not the day lillies and hosta. Hopefully this evening we will get those planted. We put down 4 bags of cypress mulch and I didn't realize how little it actually was. So we will definetly be buying more bags of it.

I started actually looking into it and in the last 3 months we have:

Hung two chandeliersinstalled two lightsremoved blinds in dining roomhung new drapes in dining roomremoved the wallpaper from the dining roompainted the dining roombought new furniture for the family roompainted the family roomnew decoration in family roomremoved blinds in family roomhung new curtains and wrought iron curtain rods in family roomhung new curtains in breakfast room (twice, actually)new curtain in kitchenremoved the blinds from the breakfast roomremoved wallpaper from 1/2 bathpainted and hung new decorations in foyerbegun working on new landscaping in front yard

This is all just in this house down here in Charleston and isn't including work on our home in Wellford or in Greer.

Now all we have to do is:paint 1/2 bathinstall new light and mirror in 1/2 bathremove wallpaper from kitchenpaint kitchen, laundry room and breakfast areafinish trim work in family roomstrip tongue oil, stain, and reapply tongue oil to dining room table

whew!!! Just writing all this makes me tired!!!

Tonight is my first board meeting of the Cathedral Women's Club, and my first meeting as Recording Secretary. I am looking forward to it and can't wait!! So with the meeting and the rain, it doens't look like we will be getting to any landscaping tonight!

Sunday, June 18, 2006

My wonderful parents came down to visit us this past weekend. It was so good to see them. They had spent the week with my grandparents in Garden City and came down here to help break up the drive home.

We did a little shopping yesterday and Joe and I purchased a metal hanging pot rack. We can't wait to get that up. The new kitchen curtains look fabulous and Joe and I put up one of the new kitchen lights on Wednesday; Joe and my dad did the other last night. They look SO good in our kitchen.

We are excited about the updates to our home security system. It's great and we love the new features. One of the new features is a medical alert pendant which my dad can wear when he comes to visit. That way, we can go to work and not worry about him because 911 is just a press of a button away. Plus we don't have to worry about our house while we are away.

I think sage green is the consensus for painting the kitchen. However, Sherwin Williams now has the Colors of Charleston in their paints and I think I chose one from there, but I can't remember the name. And no, I'm not going downstairs to pull out my Charleston Home magazine to look it up right now.

I think my DH is getting a little hungry for some lunch, so I'm now off to my second job of being a good wife.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

It's Over! It's Final! We sold hour home in Wellford! We spent all weekend and yesterday moving and going to the closing!! We are so exhausted but are thankful to God that he allowed everything to go fairly smoothly.

We decided to keep my house in Greer as our little vacation cottage. That way, we have some place to go if there is a large hurricane but also when we go up to visit. Now when we go up it's because we want to, not because we HAVE to!! yeah!!

We purchased (at my favorite store) and hung a chandelier for our breakfast area several weeks ago. I had not been able to find matching lights fo rthe kitchen until Sat. We found our chandelier at the Lowe's in Spartanburg and saw that the finish is called Midnight Gold AND they had a matching light to go with it. So we bought two of these and are SO excited to change out the lights this week in our kitchen. With the new Waverly Mistral Redcurtains (similar to the valance on teh link but without the check)in the kitchen and the new lights all we have to do is strip the ugly 80's wallpaper and paint and we are good to go!! (except for new appliances which will come eventually)

We also got a new new sleighbed and new mattress and boxsprings. We will have to pick those up in a couple of weeks when we go back up. We have so much furniture that we want to bring back and swap out since we bought a lot when we "staged" the house. Now it gets to come back here!! But we will be patient. This coming weekend we are resting and having another visit from my parents.